


Trauer

by Melpomene (nonamenuisance)



Series: Soliloquy: Our Endless Numbered Days [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Demisexual Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Grayromantic Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), M/M, Male Hange Zoë, Non-Explicit Sex, POV First Person, POV Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), acwnr spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:55:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonamenuisance/pseuds/Melpomene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>People talk about us in mere tragedy,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>but infrequent are tragedies</i>
  <br/>
  <i>that do not have</i>
  <br/>
  <i>a speck of hope,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>a dreg of happiness,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>a split-second joy.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trauer

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give a big shoutout to my little sister for beta-reading this, even though she detests anime and manga, and finds fanfiction boring. ~~How am I related to this person?~~ Anyway, thanks Moose! You're awesome.
> 
> Also, I'd like to dedicate this to my friend Chris. I miss you, man.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, nor any of the characters. The views and opinions of said characters in the following story do not necessarily represent my own.
> 
> Please note the archive warning.

_People talk about us in mere tragedy,_  
_as if all we did was hurt_  
_and crack_  
_and break_  
_until time crystalized_  
_and we slept a hundred years._

_But all I remember_  
_are the crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes_  
_and laugh lines that feel_  
_like the gravity of the universe._

_And I loved you_  
_I remember how much_  
_I unfathomably loved you._

_People talk about us in mere tragedy,_  
_but infrequent are tragedies_  
_that do not have_  
_a speck of hope,_  
_a dreg of happiness,_  
_a split-second joy._

_Many times ___  
_we were tragic._  
_but many times_  
_we were happy too._

_\--Seventy Years of Sleep, Nikka Ursula_  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
The happy times. So few and far between, yet they shone out like the brightest stars—and were just as unforgettable. We spent years chasing them, those happy moments; running after them like naïve children convinced we could reach the end of a rainbow, if only we ran far enough and fast enough.  
  
It was not always in vain. There were a few moments where we did find joy in our hellish world. Brief moments when everything was still and quiet, and it was just the two of us under the infinite stars.  
  
I struggled to remember those moments; the times where the blood and the entrails of fallen comrades did not mar happiness beyond all recognition. Rare as they were, I fought to bring them back to the forefront of my mind.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
I remember the first time I saw him. Intelligent brown eyes that looked like they contained the secrets of the universe, peering at me owlishly from behind large wire-framed glasses. Greasy hair tied up in a sloppily done tail. His uniform was wrinkled, and I remember thinking something along the lines of ‘How disgusting.’  
  
I’d hoped I’d never see the man again.  
  
At the time I believed it to be incredibly unfortunate, but he and I did meet again. Farlan, Isabel and I were discussing our plan to assassinate Erwin, when he appeared out of nowhere, looking for all the world like a madman. Chocolate strands of hair floating upwards, as if they were birds trying to fly away, light flashing from the lenses of his glasses, and a grin so wide his mouth threatened to split in two. I would say he interrupted us loudly, but that would be unnecessary. Everything he did was loud.  
  
He started pestering me with questions about the 3DMG. I remember finding it confusing. He had gone through the Survey Corps training. Shouldn’t he know more about how to use the maneuvering gear than a homeless kid like me, who’d stolen them off a murdered Military Police officer?  
  
Apparently I had been glaring at him, because Farlan had to lean over and remind me to play nice.  
  
I hadn’t wanted to play at all, much less play nice, but Farlan had had a point. We needed to integrate ourselves in seamlessly to the Survey Corps.  
  
We succeeded in blending in, and much of it was thanks to Hange. He accepted us with open arms, where the rest of our comrades were more hesitant.  
  
Only a few days after our first meeting, Farlan and Isabel were taken from me. My treachery was exposed to all the commanding officers. When Erwin was around, they ignored me. But there were times where I was caught alone and brutally reminded of my sins. Somehow, Hange knew, both of my crimes and of the treatment I received by the higher-ups. I never did find out how. Regardless, he designated himself as my friend, and followed me around like a lost puppy. I pretended to be annoyed at the time, even though I was secretly relieved to not be alone.  
  
I regret every one of the mean names I called him during those days.  
  
In the time after that, he was the only one to treat me with any kindness, as our fellow soldiers either viewed me with fear or adoration. He didn’t, instead treating me like the human I so desperately wanted to be seen as.  
  
We went on like that for years. Somewhere along the line, we began teasing and taunting, trying to anger the other for no purpose. It became a game betwixt the two of us; he would make fun of my height and impeccable standard of cleanliness, and I would pick on his unnatural obsession with titans and disgusting lack of care for his personal hygiene.  
  
I eventually had enough with his greasy hair. One evening, we happened to be in the communal baths at the same time, and I grabbed a fistful of those long brown strands and shoved his head under the soapy water he was soaking in.  
  
Sputtering and angry, he knocked my hand off and rose to the surface ready to yell, but instead had a heap of shampoo deposited onto his hair, and when I began to rub it in, the curses on his lips faded into soft groans of enjoyment.  
  
My fingers found a particularly pleasurable spot behind his right ear, and his leg began to twitch violently, causing water to splash up and wet my pants.  
  
In return, I gave a sharp tug on the strands wrapped up in my fingers, and he twisted around, wrapped his long arms around me, and hauled me into the tub with him. We’d splashed around together, trying to submerge the other, until Mike entered the baths and scolded us for being wasteful with the water.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Our relationship progressed quicker from that point on. According to Survey Corps regulations, we were not supposed to form romantic attachments towards our fellow soldiers. I resisted Hange for quite a while because of that.  
  
Eventually though, he wore me down with his pestering. I let him drag me behind the stables one day after we did our drills. In the cool shadow of the barn, he’d gently pressed me against the wooden slat walls. He’d leaned in, ever so slowly, glancing from my lips to my eyes to give me time to push him away, I suppose. I didn’t, but instead met his chapped lips with my own in what was my first kiss. He’d tasted like coffee, which I normally detested, but the flavor was delicious on his breath. His hands wound tightly in my hair, scratching softly at the shorter strands. My own hands slipped around his waist and pulled him close.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
I remember our first night together. We were on an expedition, and he had slipped into my tent after everyone else was asleep. Grabbing my wrist up into his long and calloused fingers, he’d gently pulled me from the warmth of my blankets. With continuous soft tugs, he had led me barefoot across the dewy grass. I never could figure out how long we wandered like that, surrounded with silence with the exception of the faint breeze delicately ruffling the distant leaves.  
  
Finally, he had found the place that satisfied whatever mysterious requirements he’d set, and I was surprised to find a pile of blankets placed near a thermos of hot tea. He had been preparing for this for a while.  
  
We laid down together in the meadow, surrounded by flowers, and immediately he’d started pointing out the constellations he knew, whispering out the stories behind their titles, and how they all connected.  
  
My favorite was the tale of the maiden and the dragon. One day, a maid had been out for an evening stroll, and happened upon a wounded dragon. Her compassion overcame her fear of the creature, and she dared close enough to nurse it back to health. Every day, for weeks, she would return to the dragon and apply herbal pastes to it’s injured wing. As she worked to mend the dragon, it would tell her stories of it’s adventures far and wide across the nation, and she eventually fell in love. She grew to love it so, that she could hardly bear to leave it’s side and soon took to sleeping, curled up under it’s injured wing.  
  
The dragon professed to love her back. When the maiden finally deemed the dragon to be fully healed, she was filled with joy and hope—that the dragon would take her with it on it’s many journys, and they would be together forever. Yet as soon as the dragon had tested it’s wing, it swooped down and ate the poor girl whole.  
  
He had laughed, when I told him that was my favorite story from the stars. I could not explain why then, but now I have realized what drew me to it.  
  
The girl let her love blind her to the true nature of the world; an unforgivable mistake that so many make, and one of which the consequences are always tragic and irreversible.  
  
The tea he had made was terrible. I drank every last drop, and told him I loved it. His face lit up brighter than the stars above.  
  
Eventually he, ever so slowly, leaned in close and pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. He leaned back slightly trying to gauge my reaction, before easing back in.  
  
We had shared many kisses by this point, but this particular kiss he gave me was different. Even though it was just as gentle as all our previous ones, it was filled with a peculiar longing; one I had never tasted before.  
  
We lost ourselves in each other, whispering sweet nothings interspersed with feather-light kisses, trying to stave off the lingering fear that tomorrow, one of us would leave the world behind for good.  
  
I remember the smell of him, sharp and musky, mixed with the scent of the marigolds surrounding us. The faint moans we made—nearly drowned out by the babbling of the nearby brook, my legs around his waist, the rough pads of his fingers as they laced tightly with mine, the way the moon looked as it shone bright and clear above our heads… I remember it all. Looking back, our movements together were somewhat awkward, yet even at that moment, I wouldn’t have wished for anything different. It was perfection—heaven on earth.  
  
And that was our downfall. In that moment, I committed the same sin as the maiden, and forgot the harsh reality of the world we lived in.  
  
We eventually returned back to our base, and the expedition returned the safety of the walls the next morning.  
  
He made it a habit to slip into my room in the late hours of the evening, when everyone else had drifted off to sleep. There we would never speak, for fear that reality would come rushing back, instead choosing to let our bodies communicate all the words we could not say.  
  
We were happy. Lost in each other, fully at peace in our hearts.  
  
Needless to say, the consequences of our blissful and intentional ignorance of the nature of the world were heartbreaking.  
  
Hange was first and foremost a scientist. He researched everything he could on the titans, and had always been enthusiastic enough over his experiments that he forgot to take safety precautions. Commander Erwin had made a rule that Hange was not to be allowed anywhere near the titan test subjects unless he had someone else with him to keep an eye on him.  
  
Early one morning, after a late night of forbidden lovemaking, Hange woke to a burst of inspiration regarding the titan’s feeding habits. He’d gotten dressed in a frenzy, desperate to get out to the subjects as fast as he could to test his theory. He’d always preferred it if I was the one who accompanied him, because I took an active interest in his experiments and enjoyed discussing his ideas with him.  
  
When he tried to get me to come with him, I refused. I was tired and sore from our activities a few hours earlier, and wanted nothing more than to stay in bed.  
  
Hange, although disappointed, assured me that he would find someone else to bring as his chaperone, but his excitement got the better of him.  
  
He went alone, and in the name of science got too close to the mouth of his favorite subject.  
  
It was only when the titan regurgitated its meal three days later that we received confirmation of what had happened to him. Those three days of uncertainty had been torture, but the days following were utter agony.  
  
After learning the news, I went to my room and closed myself up. Sat on the floor in front of my door, staring in to space. Curled up into the pillow that he’d used during our secret nights together, breathing in his scent.  
  
My reason to feel had died.  
  
My reason to smile had died.  
  
My everything. My heart, my soul, my sunshine. I’d never told him that I silently referred to him as that: my sunshine. He was though. For so long I lived underground, both physically and emotionally. I had never felt the tingle of the sunlight on my face, or the warmth that came from love, and I had never believed I would. Until Hange. He burst in to my life and drove the darkness from every corner in me. Dragged my soul kicking and screaming in to the light he unknowingly cast so bright.  
  
I wish I had told him. Wish I had cast off my foolish pride and told him exactly how much he meant to me, in more words than the simple ‘I love you’s’ that we’d exchanged so often. Those weren’t enough. I felt so much more for him than could be expressed with those three words. So much more.  
  
My secret dream of growing old with him would never be realized. I would never wake again to see those curious brown eyes peering at me from beneath luscious lashes. No more would I be able to complain about his dirty hair and revel in the physical joy I gave him by cleaning it. We would never again find comfort in each others arms. No more butterfly kisses, no more calloused fingers, no more stories about the stars. The secret wedding we had planned so carefully would never happen now. Never again would I be able to create a new memory with Hange.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Time went on. Eventually the titans were eradicated, although we never learned the secrets behind their confusing natures. If Hange had been here, I am certain we would have. He had been brilliant, an utter genius. His mind had worked so different from my own. Where I saw the world as black and white, with each idea fitting onto the next like a puzzle piece, Hange had seen things in the big, bright picture. To him, everything had connected by threads of logic so thin, most would miss them. He could make a jump from one idea to the next at lightning speed, and could explain how in a way that left everyone else dumbfounded at how they’d missed it.  
  
If he had been here, we would have learned everything there was to know about the titans. But he wasn’t, and we were left in the dark. I was left in the dark.  
  
The years passed, and the pain never faded. It lies dormant, until it chooses to spring upon me when I least expect it, yet it is still as potent a feeling as ever. Sometimes it attacks when I see or hear something that reminds me of Hange, but usually, it’s in the quiet morning hours when I’m in that blurred place between dreaming and waking. It lurks there, ready and waiting for me to return. And I always do. I always do.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a song that goes along well with the story. [(X)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMpwWSFEvEY)
> 
> Come hit me up on Tumblr at theraven4597!


End file.
